Trans-Tasman on Gracinda

Trans-Tasman writes:

Labour leader Andrew Little’s call for a return to Muldoon-like setting of interest rates has been well covered elsewhere, but it is only the most prominent example of an utterly woeful attack on the Govt.

The Labour party dream team, Gracinda, based their attack on an MYOB survey of small businesses which showed a sizable downturn in income for small firms due to the fall in the dairy price. Both parts of Gracinda, Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern, worked off three presumptions: dairy prices should never fall; they should and could somehow be made not to fall; and small firms do not anticipate dairy prices will never fall. None of these presumptions are true in the world outside Labour’s rarefied and strange outlook on the economy.

It would be nice if the first two were true. But unless Labour plans to bring back guaranteed minimum prices for dairy – and on recent performance, we shouldn’t rule it out – it is a silly and make-believe approach to the economy.

Labour really have had a shocking 2016 to date. The talk around journalists isn’t around the 2017 election, but if Labour can get their shit together enough to be credible by 2020 as they think a 5th term for National would be bad for democracy.